True Colors
by GundamDelta6
Summary: A series of moments inspired by the movie in which Holmes displays his true colors in moments of vulnerability. May contain references to sex, alcohol, drugs, and adult language in later chapters, rating for safety. On Hiatus.
1. Chapter 1

So sorry for the lack of updating on my House fanfics... I've been distracted lately by job hunting and a love of Sherlock Holmes that has lain dormant since I watched "Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century" when I was younger... I've only just now rediscovered it, and I'll try to update my House fanfics at some point... the season 6 tags may have to wait until the box set comes out and I manage to get my hands on it...

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Title: Green

Category: Sherlock Holmes (movie verse)

Pairing: Implied one-sided Holmes/Irene

Genre: Angst/Romance (kinda)

Set: Pre-movie

Rating: PG-ish

Summary: The papers had been known to make men see red, flush white, or feel blue, but never has anything on the printed page served to turn a man green.

A/N: Inspired by the first real Holmes/Irene scene of the movie, wherein he makes the comment that she is between husbands. Watson's POV

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Holmes sat in his chair facing the fire, his pipe in one hand and the morning paper in the other. I could see his eyes scan the page as if searching for something to clip for one of his notebooks. During the previous month, there had been quite a bit of clipping for one book in particular. The man didn't even try to hide the activity from me as other men would do. Whenever I'd question him, he would give me the same answer.

_"If the time should ever come when such a large amount of clear evidence is required for her capture and conviction, I shall be able to present it. It's nothing more than that, I assure you."_

He snorted suddenly and set his pipe between his lips to turn the page and I looked up from my writing of a letter to a young woman with whom I'd recently become acquainted.

"What is it, Holmes?" I asked, leaning back a bit in my chair on the other side of the fireplace.

"Nothing you need worry about, Watson," he replied easily from the corner of his mouth not holding the pipe. How that man could talk and smoke at the same time was quite astounding, if that word could be said about anything the man did anymore. I rolled my eyes and turned back to my letter, only to glance back up seconds later as the pipe clattered to the floor and Holmes rose swiftly from his chair and began to pace. I could catch very few of the words he muttered as he paced, his pipe ignored along with the ash and tobacco that spilled from it in a small pile on the floor. Words like "woman" and "what is she thinking" and "preposterous" caused me quite more interest than perhaps Holmes would have liked if I'd chanced to ask what the devil he was blathering about. Instead of asking, I simply guessed.

"What's Miss Adler done now?" He stopped and fixed me with the hardest stare I'd ever seen on him in the absence of a case. I raised my eyebrow to show that I was quite unfazed after so many years of our living together. "Stolen a great diamond? Made off with the Japanese Emperor's kimono?"

"No and no," Holmes snapped and turned away from me to glare into the fire and I had to strain to hear his next words, whispered in so harsh a voice I was certain that he was angry. "She's getting married… again." I allowed a smirk to touch my lips simply because he wasn't looking at me and I slouched a bit in my chair, getting quite comfortable. I remembered clearly his reaction to all of Miss Adler's marriages, the first of which was incredulous confusion. I remembered him telling me he'd been spotted by the husband, Mr. Godfrey Norton, and had been made to stand as witness to make the union legal. The way he'd spoken of her, I didn't need any of Holmes' special skills to deduce why his reactions steadly followed the spectrum from surprise and confusion to amusement to anger. "Stop that infernal smirking, Watson," he ground out and my face fell. How the devil…? He turned to face me and his eyes were narrowed and his lips drawn into a thin line as he paced back to his chair and collapsed into it. He seemed almost to be brooding.

"Holmes, she's gotten married before. Why are you upset this time?" I asked gently. His eyes flicked to mine for a brief moment before turning to focus again on their previous target, a cabinet photo on a table. His prize from the case of the Bohemian King and his most prized possession even above his emerald ring or Persian slipper, it was a rather attractive photograph of the woman in question. If he expected me to believe that the only reason he kept it out in the open was because it was a souvenir from a case, he was quite sorely mistaken. Sherlock Holmes was a man like any other, regardless of what he thought otherwise. There was one reason in my mind that a man would keep a cabinet photo of a woman he had no relation to out in the open to be viewed by anyone who entered the study for a consult or social visit. It dawned on me as I thought of that. "Are you… jealous?" I asked incredulously. His eyes turned back to mine, narrowed. "You are jealous."

"I most certainly am not jealous!" Holmes spat before turning his eyes to glare moodily into the fire.

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Hopefully I'll also be able to update this soon with another color prompt...


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Pink

Category: Sherlock Holmes (movie-verse)

Pairing: Implied Holmes/Irene, but really, nothing

Genre: Action

Set: When Holmes is waiting in the shadows and watching Blackwood's ritual.

Rating: PG-13 for violence and mentions of cocaine.

Summary: Holmes has always considered emotions to be a distraction from a case, but it's never once crossed his mind that it works in reverse too.

A/N: It was hard to think of a "color" for this one… actually just drew a random one out of an old box of crayons. I'm thinking it represents the color of a faint blush. Trying Holmes' POV on this one... Doesn't exactly follow the movie, just inspired by it.

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For a moment, standing in that darkness above the cellar, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to focus in other ways. I needed to rely on all my senses if I was going to do this thing properly. Darkness claimed my vision as my eyelids slid closed and my ears picked up the words of the ritual, footsteps approaching on the stairwell which had led me here. The scent of the cellar reached my nostrils, and I reeled from it, my hands reaching out to brace me against the wall. The stone was cold and damp, and I turned my head a fraction, catching the smell of mold. Nothing was worth noting more than the ritual words and footsteps. I opened my eyes and glanced over the railing again to look down at the girl.

For a second, a very brief second, I heard the footsteps pause, and a second set join them. After that second, I blocked it out and focused on the ritual. I blinked once, and another woman's image was transposed onto the one writhing below. And another, and another. Every woman who had died in a similar manner flashed before my eyes in that one moment before I opened my eyes again.

I had to stop him now. There was no time to wait for Lestrade. Quickly, I moved to descend and was stopped by the double sets of footsteps growing louder as they came closer. Pausing in my own steps, I turned just a bit and saw my pursuer struggling against the grip of my companion. A light smirk touched my lips and I moved to assist.

"Surprised you haven't jumped yet," Watson muttered.

"I was waiting for you," I answered, smirking, as the man lost consciousness and we dropped him on the stairs.

"Sure you were."

"I was. Really."

"Were you?"

"I just said I was." I turned away from the good doctor and leaned again over the railing, jumping back when one of the hooded men looked up. "I think they know we're here."

"You 'think'?" Watson asked incredulously as he moved to join me.

"Yes, and we're about to have company," I answered, running to the stairwell leading down to the cellar from the landing we were currently on, stopping a few steps down when two hooded men blocked our path. Immediately, I struck one in the jugular and he crumpled. The other lunged at me and I ducked to the side, locking one of my ankles over one of his to trip him. Watson brought his elbow down on the man's back as he brought himself up, and he fell again. I placed my boot on the back of his neck and shifted so that my heel dug into his throat, blocking the flow of blood through the veins, making sure that the man was unconscious before we moved on. "Knew I could count on you," I said to my friend.

"He could end up completely paralyzed, Holmes…" Watson said to me and I smirked.

"But of course, you knew that when you struck him." The doctor nodded after a moment, and I could tell by the curve of his lips and the quivering of the skin beneath his jaw that he was chuckling, though I couldn't hear the laughter. "Come, we have a murder to prevent." Turning quickly, I descended the stairs and entered the cellar, Watson following.

Back in our rooms at Baker Street, I sat turned towards the window, violin in one hand and bow in the other, a velvet-lined case sitting on the windowsill where I had set it, and now I gazed at it in contemplation, drawing the bow slowly over the strings of my Stradivarius. I felt Watson's eyes on me from across the room, but did not turn. I knew what that gaze implied.

"I'd rather if you cut directly to the lecture, Watson," I said softly, not taking my eyes from the case, "instead of willing me to turn around and take my eyes off of my syringe case."

"No lecture today, Holmes. Much good it has done in the past." My friend's voice sounded so despondent that I was forced to pause in my playing and turn at least partially to look at him, curious as to this sudden change. It had never once occurred to me that my doctor-friend would ever cease lecturing me on my use of cocaine, and that he had foregone a lesson in the mind-altering properties of the substance intrigued and infuriated me, though not in the usual sense of the term. "No, today, I only have a question for you." I turned more fully in the chair, but not so far that I had to stand. Through the corner of one eye, I kept my syringe in sight while still giving Watson my attention, indicating that he could indeed ask the question.

"Go on," I said, in case he needed to hear something to indicate I was actually going to listen to him this time.

"Will you be using it as a distraction from the distinct lack of a case since this one's wrapped up? Or a distraction from something else entirely?" He folded his arms over his chest as he stared at me. I thought I could see something in his eyes that seemed to remind me of the way my father would look at me when he knew I'd snuck out after dark, or how my dear elder brother had looked the first time I asked him for a loan. He was upset with me.

"Why would you ask such a thing, Watson? You know very well by now what my solution is for." I set down my violin and leant the bow against it, finally rising and turning away from him to reach out my hand for the case that held the prepared syringe. Slowly, I opened the case and took up the needle. Watson's footsteps came closer and his hand took my wrist. "It is a distraction. What it distracts from does not alter its purpose." Even as I spoke, I knew the blood was rising to my head, and my face felt hot. I was skilled at hiding such things, and I did hide this.

"It may not have anything to do with the use, but it makes a difference to the user. Usually, you wait a few weeks without a case before needing narcotics to occupy yourself. It's not the lack of work. You're still thinking about her, aren't you?" Watson released his hold on my wrist and instead took my syringe from my fingers. His eyes spoke of his disgust, though why it should make any difference whatever to him, even I could not deduce.

"I leave you to your fancies, I pray you leave me to mine." Turning, I plucked the cocaine syringe from his hand and held it tightly in my own. "If I fancy to distract myself from a woman with my cocaine, I will, and if you wish to do the opposite and distract yourself from it with a woman, I will not stop you." I turned away, angry with myself for the years spent teaching Watson my methods, for now he was able to figure my true intent. "How did you deduce it? Aside from knowing my pattern." My voice, I kept even, though I knew my eyes were blazing.

"You turned her photo down. You never do that. You didn't even turn it down when you learned she'd left Mr. Norton after robbing him of his most valuable possessions, nor when she married a second time and left in the same fashion. You've not touched it since you set it in place, no matter what she does that catches your attention. Since you've turned it flat, you must be avoiding thinking about her." I heard his footsteps turn and cross the room, heard the handle of the door rattle as he turned it. "You're obsessed with her, Holmes. Let it go." The door opened and closed, and I turned to see that Watson had left. I turned my eyes back to my syringe and dropped it back into the velvet lining of its case and snapping it closed before setting it carefully in a drawer of my desk, slipping the band that held the key from around my wrist and locking the drawer. I crossed the room to pick up the cabinet photo I had claimed as my prize from the King of Bohemia, my eyes tracing over the gentle curves of her head and face, her eyes in the photo as expressive as they were in solid form.

Breathing out hard, I slammed the photo down again and crossed back to my chair by the window, taking up my violin once more.

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Next Chapter: Black... no idea when it will be posted, but stay tuned anyway!


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